For Good Luck
by FantasyWorldMiny
Summary: A heart is broken as Mako receives a gift from an anonymous fan.


**Well, here is my first fan fiction for The Legend of Korra. And it's not even a shipping thing, or even a real romance. Of course, I always love my unrequited, non-existent romance angles anyway. You'll see when you read it. I actually had a lot of fun with this, in the ten minutes or so that it took me to write it... And now that I've gotten this out of my system, I really should be a responsible college student and write my Hamlet paper that's due tomorrow.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Korra or any of its characters. The only character that is mine is Tora, and she only has a name because I got tired of using a pronoun for an nondescript fangirl.**

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><p>It was a stupid idea. She had known it from the start. Her heart ached as she sprinted away from the locker room of the Bending Arena, her gift left behind on the tile floor. Tears threatened to sting her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Tora was too stubborn to let anyone see her cry. She would wait until after she was home before the tears would be permitted to fall over her pale cheeks. She cursed herself for even wanting to cry in the first place. It wasn't as though she had lost anything. He didn't even know she existed, and all this meant was that it would stay that way.<p>

Tora was a non-bender, but she loved watching those that could work their magic and manipulate the elements to their will. It was an incredible sight to behold for her, and she often wished she could do the same. Sadly, the ability to bend any element was out of her reach. But that never stopped her from watching. That was why she originally went to a Pro-Bending match with her brother. She continued to go because she had seen _him_. Mako was the powerful, graceful and tactical Firebender from the Fire Ferrets team. Tora loved watching him fight most of all, and had begun to memorize his style. Every night after a match, she would long to say something to the team captain, but something had always held her back.

Finally, after weeks upon weeks of watching from the sidelines, Tora had decided to meet the young man she admired so. She'd brought a simple gift for him, figuring he wasn't one for extravagance, and quickly made her way to the locker room in the hopes of catching him on his way out. Her heart was beating frantically in her chest as she rounded the corner and approached the doorway. What she saw made that frantic beating abruptly come to an end. Mako had been caught in a tight embrace by his female companion, the Avatar Korra. Tora didn't waste another instant before turning around and running away, leaving the gift on the ground in her wake.

And that had led her in the position she was in now, with her knees drawn to her chest as she sat on the bench outside the Bending Arena, waiting for a bus to come and take her home. A light drizzle was falling and she allowed herself to shed a tear, even if she didn't feel she deserved to. She had always known she would never be someone of any importance to Mako, no matter how much she had wished it in her wildest dreams. He would never have even bothered to glance her way, and she knew it. She wasn't a bender. She wasn't the Avatar. She wasn't Korra. And that made all the difference.

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><p>"We did it!" Korra crowed victoriously as she finally released her platypus-bear hug that she had forced Mako into.<p>

The team captain straightened out his sleeves after being released and attempted to feign annoyance with the Avatar. But he couldn't help the grin that spread across his features at the thought that she was right. They _had_ done it. They were going to the finals of the Pro-Bending Tournament. It was so close he could almost taste it. Soon enough, he and his brother wouldn't have to do odd jobs around the Arena to secure a place to live, or food to eat. Bolin was just as excited as Korra at their victory, which kept the smile on Mako's face alive. His brother may have driven him crazy sometimes, but it made him happy to see Bolin happy. The commotion was brought to a momentary halt when the sound of a box dropping to the floor echoed from just outside the locker room. Bolin, being closest to the door, stepped out to investigate.

"It's a gift for Mako," he said as he returned with a small box in his hands. "It says, 'Congratulations on making it to the Finals.' No name on it, though. Looks like you've got a secret admirer, bro." He shoved the box into Mako's hands, and the older brother merely rolled his eyes at his brother's assumption.

"Well, aren't you going to open it?" Korra urged, her curiosity gaining the best of her.

Mako pulled the delicate ribbon off the box and opened it, revealing a handmade leather bracelet with a silver medallion inlayed into it. The medallion itself had the image of a phoenix carved into it, a symbol of luck for Firebenders. Mako's mouth hung slightly open at the sight of it. He was unused to receiving anything from fans; Bolin was usually the one with girls chasing after him. Even more than that was the fact that this was something that someone would have spent a lot of time on to create. Whoever made it couldn't have done so in the time between the ending of the match and the moment the gift was discovered. He or she must have assumed his team would win.

"How cool is that?" Bolin asked as he looked over his brother's shoulder at the bracelet.

"You should wear it in the finals," Korra suggested with a grin, "for good luck." For once, Mako was inclined to agree with her.

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><p><strong>Yeah, Tora probably should have approached him... but then I wouldn't know what to write because I didn't want to make this a MakoOC fic... And, admittedly, I'm already shipping Mako with Korra (though not in a crazy shipper way, just that I would like for them to be together in the show). But I decided to put my shipping aside for the sake of some 'wrong place wrong time' shenanigans. Because that is always more fun. Anyway, please R&amp;R.<strong>


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